Economic consequences of health

Health is affected by economic factors, but it may also exert an independent impact on relevant micro- and macroeconomic outcomes. To the extent that credible evidence confirms the latter impact, this may add to the argument for investing in health, in particular for policymakers outside of health care. However, producing such credible, causal evidence is fraught with methodological challenges.

Work in this sub-theme focuses mainly on assessing the impact of (ill-)health, risk factors and health behaviours on economic outcomes at the individual or household level, e.g. in terms of wages, employment and working hours. Some of the work also assesses the impact of health on macroeconomic factors, e.g. the growth rate of national per capita income.

Senior staff undertaking research in this area include: Nigel Rice (HEDG team) and Marc Suhrcke (Global Health team)